Editing Islam in Libya (section)

===Islam in Gaddafi's Libya===

{{More citations needed section|date=August 2023}}
[[File:Koran class in Al Bayda.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|Quran class in [[Bayda, Libya|Bayda]]]]

Under the revolutionary [[Muammar al-Gaddafi|Gaddafi]] government, the role of [[Orthodoxy|orthodox]] Islam in Libyan life became progressively more important.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Joffe |first=George |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i4CpAgAAQBAJ |title=Islamist Radicalisation in North Africa: Politics and Process |date=2012-06-12 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-65457-2 |pages=11–24 |language=en}}</ref>

Soon after taking office, the Gaddafi government began closing [[Bar (establishment)|bars]] and [[nightclub]]s, banning entertainment deemed provocative or immodest, and making use of the [[Islamic calendar]] mandatory. The intention of reestablishing sharia was announced, and Gaddafi personally assumed chairmanship of a commission to study the problems involved. In November 1973, a new legal code was issued that revised the entire Libyan judicial system to conform to the sharia, and in 1977 the [[General People's Congress (Libya)|General People's Congress]] (GPC) issued a statement that all future legal codes would be based on the Quran.

Among the laws enacted by the Gaddafi government were a series of legal penalties prescribed during 1973 which included the punishment of armed [[robbery]] by [[amputation]] of a hand and a foot. The legislation contained qualifying clauses making its execution unlikely, but its enactment had the effect of applying Quranic principles in the modern era. Another act prescribed flogging for individuals breaking the fast of Ramadan, and yet another called for eighty lashes to be administered to both men and women guilty of [[fornication]].

In the early 1970s, Islam played a major role in legitimizing Gaddafi's political and social reforms. By the end of the decade, however, he had begun to attack the religious establishment and several fundamental aspects of Sunni Islam. Gaddafi asserted the transcendence of the Quran as the sole guide to Islamic governance and the unimpeded ability of every Muslim to read and interpret it. He denigrated the roles of the [[ulama]], imams, and Islamic jurists and questioned the authenticity of the hadith, and thereby the sunna, as a basis for Islamic law. The sharia itself, Gaddafi maintained, governed only such matters as properly fell within the sphere of religion; all other matters lay outside the purview of religious law. Finally, he called for a revision of the Islamic calendar, saying it should date from [[Muhammad#Farewell pilgrimage|Muhammad's death]] in 632, an event he felt was more momentous than the hijra ten years earlier.

The government took a leading role in supporting Islamic institutions and in worldwide proselytizing on behalf of Islam. The Jihad Fund, supported by a payroll tax, was established in 1970 to aid the [[Palestinian people|Palestinians]] in their struggle with [[Israel]]. The Faculty of Islamic Studies and Arabic at the [[University of Benghazi]] was charged with training Muslim intellectual leaders for the entire Islamic world, and the Islamic Mission Society used public funds for the construction and repair of [[mosque]]s and Islamic educational centers in cities as widely separated as [[Vienna]] and [[Bangkok]].